Islamic Sisterhood

Muslims have been major targets of hate crimes and discrimination in the US since 9/11. Anti-Muslim resentment increased again after Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency and revitalized far-right politics. In this hostile environment, why do many young Muslim women choose to wear a headscarf and publicly display their Islamic identity? This book unravels this puzzle by drawing on sociological insights and three years of ethnographic study with Muslim adolescents in New York during the post-9/11 backlash. It finds that young, American-born Muslim women choose to cover their hair and bodies not simply out of spiritual devotion to Islamic fundamentalism, but also, and primarily, to cope with social adversity rooted in sexism, racism, and patriarchy in both their ethnic community and the larger Western society. This book will appeal to scholars, students and other readers interested in the Muslim diaspora, gender, race and ethnicity, youth, immigration, and social movements.